My invention relates to vending machines, and more particularly to apparatus for recording the frequency with which various selections offered have been chosen by customers.
Apparatus for recording the relative frequency with which selections offered by vending machines have been chosen are known to the prior art. Such devices are particularly useful in vending machines as jukeboxes, in which there is no decrease in physical inventory associated with choices of particular selections to indicate the frequency with which such choices have been made. These devices are all mechanical, requiring considerable maintenance and occupying a large space. One such device comprises a plurality of pins each mounted for travel along a specified path, and means for selectively tapping each pin so as to move it a little further along its path of travel. This device is complex, since it includes 100 pins and the mechanism necessary to tap each one. It requires considerable maintenance and adjustment. Furthermore, the device is inaccurate, since the tap received by a pin does not always cause the pin to travel the same amount. The readout of the number of choices made of a given selection is analog in nature rather than digital.
Further prior art is Hughes U.S. Pat. No. 3,990,710 which teaches the making of a tape record of each selection chosen in a Coin Operated Recording Machine. Hughes, however, shows no apparatus for totaling the number of choices made of a given selection, or for sorting the selections so as to reveal those which are chosen most or least frequently.